thee more highly? Can he love thee more heartily? Can he display his grace in thee more fully?

But, sinner, what art thou to Jesus? Thou art his enemy. Thou art opposed to him. Thou lovest him not. Should he deal with thee according to thy sins, or reward thee according to thine iniquities, how fearful would be the consequences, how dreadful the result! Can you read of the believer's privileges without wishing to enjoy them? Can you hear of the christian's honours without desiring to share them? Is the love of Jesus nothing to thee? Is the blood of Jesus treated as a common or worthless thing by thee? "Behold, now is the accepted time! Behold, now is the day of salvation!" The way of escape is cast up before thee; the entrance is close by thee; strive, then, to enter in at the strait gate; for strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Will you be among that few? But because wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, many there be that go in thereat. Will you be among the many? Oh, if you

should!

Cheltenham.

"THE ONE-MAN SYSTEM.”

In some of our churches there appears to be a disposition to moot once more the question of a plurality of teachers. Notwithstanding all that the Plymouth brethren have done unintentionally to demonstrate by their failure that the plan will not work, it is still thought that it may be made to work. We think this very natural. It is so obvious that each New Testament church had several elders or bishops (for our readers know that the terms designate the same officers);-the churches of Philippi, of Ephesus, and of Corinth, had so evidently many bishops, overseers, and teachers, that scarcely any church historian of credit thinks of controverting that notorious fact. Hence good men devoted to the Scriptures, and holding that the apostolic churches are models for us in all things, must conclude that to be ecclesiastically perfect, we ought to have a plurality of elders or bishops, and of teachers. Now, we freely concede that, so far as form is concerned, our congregational churches are as wide of the New Testament mark one way, as the Episcopalian church is the other way. If the latter has brought a plurality of churches under the supreme government of one bishop, we have banished a plurality of bishops from our churches, and placed each church under the government and teaching of a single bishop. Opponents amongst us of Diocesan Episcopacy have often alleged against it, that in the New Testament churches, so far from one bishop superintending several churches, single churches were, on the contrary, superintended by several bishops. In their theological zeal they forgot that their own argument was the condemnation of their own system also. Since, if they required Episcopalians to conform to the New Testament model as drawn by themselves, of course they must be ready to conform to it also, the result of which would evidently have been congregational churches with a plurality of bishops in each. Diocesan Episcopacy must, therefore, be attacked on other grounds, unless we are prepared to recast the Congregational Episcopacy of our own churches. For ourselves we hold (with our readers doubtless) so strongly to the mutual independence and self-government of the New Testament churches, that we should attack Diocesan Episcopacy first and chiefly on that ground, even if we limited ourselves to the New Testament form. Nor should we want arguments of a more important kind to prove it inconsistent with the spirit of New Testament ecclesiastical principles.

To return to ourselves, however, the question naturally arises, Can we honestly justify to ourselves the present usage of our churches, that which is denominated contemptuously "the one-man system," and which does confide the public instruction, the conducting of public worship, the administration of the ordinances, and the perpetual presidency, to one person, to the individual commonly designated the pastor?

We reply without hesitation that it can only be maintained as expedient, and cannot be maintained at all, if it can be shewn that it interferes, first, with the equal franchises of all members of the church, or if it can be shewn, secondly, that we are as much bound by apostolic practice in ecclesiastical matters as we are by apostolic precept.

Now we must think that the latter principle, imposing as it seems, and much trouble as it would save, cannot be well sustained. Previous to enquiry it would be natural to expect that diverse circumstances would require different arrangements, and though it might be alleged that such liberty would open the door to the widest deviations, we should still reply that every institution resting on a moral and spiritual basis, every institution which is not one of the letter merely, is open to the same difficulty. The opponents of negro slavery, with the conduct of Paul in the case of Onesimus before them, and the advocates of feet-washing, and the kiss of charity, will make short work of it with all who require conformity to the letter of the apostolic doings and arrangements. We do not even find one clear case of the election of pastors and elders by the people themselves, yet none of us doubts that with them rested the final approval, even if the apostles or their deputies were the actual nominators of the first elders or bishops.* Whatever is preceptively enjoined we hold of course to be unconditionally binding. Whatever is essentially involved in the great cardinal principles laid down in the New Testament, we deem equally binding; but though giving its full weight to apostolic example, whether personal or ecclesiastical, we must think it always an open question how far they were determined in their plans by the circumstances of their times. We fully believe they arranged with inspired wisdom for the time then present, but unless they themselves say so, it is still matter of enquiry whether they intended to establish minute ecclesiastical precedents for all time. If they did, we confess at once that our present arrangement is nearly as indefensible as government by Conferences, Presbyteries, and Diocesan Bishops.

Does our church system, then, interfere with the scriptural liberties of christians? It is hardly a sufficient reply, that all done in our churches is done by their own vote. No majority has a right to vote away the essential franchises of a minority. Nay, a whole church has no right to imitate the French, and place their liberties unanimously at the feet of a dictator. Now, the right, nay, the duty, of every member to edify his fellow-members to the extent of his abilities, is obvious enough, both in the letter of the New Testament, and in the very spirit of our Religion. Hence we think the whole question runs up to this,-taking Society as it is, does the selection of one individual as the stated teacher most conduce to the edifying of the church? We are inclined to think that it does. It seems likely that the practice in question has arisen out of the general advance in education of all classes, and still more out of the necessary subdivision of labour when population is dense. Such are now the demands upon the time of every one who has to earn his living, that it is impossible for persons engaged in the busy pursuits of life to satisfy the intellectual wants of their fellow-christians. The crude monotony of teachers who

* We cannot honestly follow Calvin in laying stress upon the Greek word employed in Acts xiv. 23. See authorities in Bretschneider, whom Robinson copies even to errors in numerals!

have not leisure for study and reflection, does not sustain the interest of well-informed christians, however much their occasional brief exhortations might be listened to with pleasure. But if we remember that very large numbers who are not church members can and do attend our wor ship, on a day on which law and custom give them leisure to do so (a state of things so diverse to that of the apostolic age, where the unbeliever coming in was the exception), we think it is obvious that these persons could not be induced to come, unless they were furnished with teachers of better qualifications than could be looked for generally from men of business; albeit these very men, many of them at least, with equal advantages, might much surpass in interest the actual preacher.

We must, however, defer till next month the proof that our actual system is more in conformity with that of the New Testament, than at first sight it would appear to be; and also the additions which, in our view, would make it harmonize completely with it.

THE GRAVE.

The grave-oh, call it not dark and cold,
For it soon may be my bed,

And I cannot bear that unfriendly mould
Should pillow my silent head,

Even when I am dead—I am dead.

I have thought of the grave, with its turfy green,
With its wild or planted flowers,

And numbered it with the beautiful things
In this beautiful world of ours,

This bright, loved world of ours;

And in the churchyard it seemed to me
The sun had a kindlier ray;

The song of the bird, the hum of the bee,
And the chirp of the cricket were gay,
And the sky wore the soft blue of May.

And oft, when a child, on a frosty night,
The moon shining brightly clear,

I have watched the play of its pensive light
On the snow-robed churchyard near;
The memory still how dear!

Is it not kindly of mother earth

To open her bosom warm,

And receive, for a purer, a nobler birth,

The chilly and wasted form,

The way worn and wearied form?

When we bury the seed 'neath the softened mould,

Do we call it sad and drear?

No; we think how the flower will in beauty unfold
In some future month of the year,

With feelings of hope, not of fear.

The tomb! oh, the Saviour has hallowed the tomb,
And his "fragrance" still lingers there;

And as he arose to immortal bloom,

They that sleep in him shall bis glory share,
And robes of beauty like his shall wear.

The grave! then call it not dark and cold,
Nor think ye upon it with fear;

But the flight of the spirit by faith behold,
And the resurrection near-

Life, joy, and glory near.

"།

Scripture Exposition for the People.

A FRAGMENT OF NEW TESTAMENT
CHURCH HISTORY.
Acts xi.

BY THE REV. S. G. GREEN, B.A.

The earliest persecution of the church was one of Satan's grand mistakes. If he had thought to exterminate, he succeeded only in scattering; instead of martyrs he made missionaries; and the means adopted to destroy, did but provide for the immediate and rapid dissemination of the truth. "They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word" (Acts viii. 4). After this announcement, the historian turns to other subjects and fields of labour, and does not resume, until the 19th verse of the 11th chapter, the story of the exiles from Jerusalem. This must be carefully remembered. Let us follow one of these pilgrim groups in their quiet, yet heroic

course.*

They came to Antioch, the metropolis of Syria, and one of the largest, most sumptuous, and most depraved cities of the heathen world. First of all, true to the habits and prepossessions of the parent church, they make their way to the Jewish quarter, and publish along its narrow, squalid streets, and in its little synagogue, the glad-tidings of the Nazarene. Within these bounds they, for a time, restrict their labours. Their principles, customs, church order, forbid them to go farther. But their hearts speedily become too big for such restraint. They cannot, as now for the first time in their lives they find themselves within a Gentile city, gaze unmoved upon the statues, temples, processions, and the other countless symbols of a gorgeous idolatry. Their spirits are "stirred within them." They cannot help it! Prejudice, habit, precedent, are flung to the winds; and one day, to the astonishment of all, and not least to their own, they find themselves proclaiming to the uncircumcised heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ.†

It is not likely these poor men had heard of Peter's vision at Joppa, even if it had taken place. True, it is related in a preceding chapter; but, as we have remarked, it belongs to a different and parallel series of events. The vision occurred, probably, a considerable time-it may be some years after the scattering. It is, indeed, sufficiently remarkable, if true, that whereas it required a revelation from heaven to per-> suade an apostle to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, these plain men were led to do the same without any vision at all, but just from the impulse of their own devoted hearts; or rather from the silent inspiration of that Spirit, from whom "all just thoughts, all holy desires, and all good counsels do proceed."

Having, however, made a commencement, they could not stop. Many must have been their misgivings, for a while, respecting their "irregular" conduct. Was it right or wrong? "THE HAND OF THE LORD" itself decides the question. great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." The demonstration of the propriety of their conduct was its success.

"A

But the news came to Jerusalem. Let us suppose, for a moment, similar tidings communicated to a modern church. Some of its members have been acting, without directions, without precedent, in violation of the established custom, and altogether out of course. Tell such a tale to the Puseyites; they are filled with indignant horror! Nay, where is the synod that would not condemn? Even in churchmeetings, here and there, with all their freedom and simplicity, we suspect not a few would be found to deprecate "zeal without prudence," and to talk of "gospel order."

We do not know what the church in Jerusalem thought: not unlikely they were doubtful and anxious: at any rate we are told what they did. One of their number there was, on whose wise head and loving

"Men of Cyprus and Cyrene;" i.e., natives of those places, or descendants of such natives, who had become residents in Jerusalem, and members of the church in that city. The feeling of clanship in the Jewish metropolis was very strong between fellow-countrymen who had settled there. Each little party had its own synagogue, while all joined in the common worship of the Temple. See vi. 9. (Compare the Yorkshire Society in London.)

+ It seems beyond a doubt that "the Grecians," whom the men of Cyprus and Cyrene are described (verse 20) as addressing, were Gentile idolators. They were thus a different class from the Grecians mentioned vi. 1, ix. 21, who were proselytes to the Jewish faith. There is, indeed, a question of different readings in the passage, not discussed above, as all, or nearly all, eminent critics are agreed in the view we have given.

Let it be remembered, also, that Barnabas was a man of Cyprus (vi. 36), and would, therefore, have a bond of special sympathy with some of those to whom he was sent.